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The Fourth of July is a day on which Americans celebrate liberty, equality under heaven, and freedom from tyranny and foreign rule. Thus it is an appropriate day to read Torah. This is a Torah reading (divided into three aliyot) and a Haftarah reading to be recited on the Fourth of July. The first two aliyot of the Torah reading are from the instructions for the sabbatical year. These readings include the famous line inscribed on the Liberty Bell – “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” as well as hope for secure and prosperous dwelling in the land. Before the third aliyah the Torah scroll is rolled past the Tochechah, whose reading is inappropriate for a festival day, and the reading includes God’s promise never to forget the Jewish people in exile among the nations, an appropriate reading as we live across a sea, in the utmost west. The haftarah is a song of celebration from Isaiah over the downfall of tyrants and oppressors. Much of its language is reminiscent of the text of the Grievances in the Declaration of Independence. To conclude on a more positive note, it continues to a passage that announces that God’s will is done and cannot be stopped by the forces of evil.

The English translation of Isaiah’s poem uses terms for Greek mythology – specifically “Tartarus” and “Olympus” to translate שאול and צפון. This was chosen because the poem is directed at a non-Israelite who reigned over a foreign nation, and in the history of the Jewish people such nations were often Greco-Roman. In Canaanite mythology, Mt. Zaphon (צפון) is the meeting-place of the gods, so “Olympus” serves as an appropriate translation.

These readings would be performed as in a normal Torah service on weekdays, with two exceptions. Because of the nature of the Gregorian calendar, the Fourth of July often falls on a Saturday, in which case the first two parashiyot would be combined to form a special maftir, and the regular Shabbat haftarah would be replaced (unless falling during the three weeks, in which case the haftarot of retribution take precedence).

A more difficult problem is that the Fourth of July can often fall on the 17th of Tammuz, a fast day. When this occurs, the Fourth of July reading would occur in the morning. The first two aliyot would be equivalent, but the third aliyah would be extended from 26:3 to 26:48, including the Tochechah. There is in fact an ancient tradition of reading the Tochechah on fast days – see Megillah 31b – so this is appropriate. The haftarah would not be read. In the afternoon, the standard fast day reading and haftarah would be read.

Note: “The CAUSE” is used to translate the Divine Name YHVH, based on the philosophical idea of God as the Prime Mover and on the interpretation of the Name as a causative form of the copula – “causes to be.”

This is part two of what will be a series of Torah and Haftarah readings for civic holidays. (For a reading on Thanksgiving Day (U.S.) visit here.)

And you will count yourself seven weeks of years, seven years seven times, and these will be for you days of seven weeks of years, forty-nine years. And you will sound aloud the call of the shofar on the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, on the Day of Atonement you will sound aloud the shofar in all your lands. And you will sanctify the year of the fiftieth year, and you will declare liberty in the land to all its inhabitants; a jubilee it will be for you, and each person will return to his inheritance and to his family return. It is a jubilee, the year of the fiftieth year will be for you, you will not plant and you will not reap the growth and you will not harvest the untrimmed. For it is a jubilee, it will be sacred for you, from the field you will eat its fruit. In the year of this jubilee each person will return to his inheritance.

And when you sell sales to your fellow, or purchasing from your fellow, one may not wrong another. Just for the number of years since the jubilee you will buy from your fellow, and he will sell you only for the number of years of crops. So that the more years, the more you pay, and so that the fewer years, the less you pay, for a number of crops he is selling you. You will not wrong one another, but be in awe of your God, for I am the CAUSE your God. And you will do My laws and guard My rules and do them, and thus live on the land in safety.

And I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham I will remember, and I will remember the land. [Quietly] And the land will be lost from them, paying off its Sabbaths by being desolate of them, and they will pay off their iniquity, obviously because they rejected my rules and their souls spurned my laws. [Regular] And also, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them and I will not spurn them or destroy them or annul My covenant with them, for I the CAUSE am their God. And I will remember for their sake the ancient covenant, that I brought them from the land of Egypt in the eyes of all the nations to be for them God; I am the CAUSE. These are the laws and the rules and the teachings that the CAUSE has given between the Divine and the children of Israel on Mt. Sinai by the hand of Moses.

And it will be, on the day that the CAUSE grants you rest from your pain and turmoil, and from the hard labor that you labored under, that you will carry up this song to mock the king of Babylon, and say, How has the tyrant ceased, the oppression stopped! The CAUSE broke the staff of the wicked, the rod of overlords. It struck peoples in rage, strikes without cease, treading down nations in anger, pursuit without relent. Now rest and peace is all the earth, breaking out in joyous song! Even the cypresses celebrate against you, the Lebanon cedars, “Now that you have laid down, none will come up to cut us over!” Tartarus below quaked at you, to welcome your entrance, awakening for you the dead-spirits of all the chiefs of earth, raising from their seats all the kings of nations. All speak out and say to you, “So you have been stricken as have we; like us you have become! Brought down to Tartarus is your pride, the noise of your lutes; worms are a bed below you, to cover you maggots!” How have you fallen from the sky, o Venus, Morning Star; brought down to earth, vanquisher of nations! You had thought to yourself, “I will climb to the skies, above the Divine stars I will place my throne, I will sit in the mount of assembly on highest Olympus! I will climb on the back of a cloud, I will be like the Highest! Instead, to Tartarus you were brought down, to the lowest Pit. They see you, they stare, they observe you: “Is this the man who shook the earth, quaked the nations? Who made the world like wilderness, its towns wrecked, its prisoners never let home?” All the kings of all nations were laid in honor in their final home. But you were thrown from your grave, like an unwanted twig; in a dead man’s clothes gashed by the sword, going down to the stones of the Pit like a trampled corpse. You will not be buried alongside them, for your land you destroyed, your people you killed Forever more your evil seed will be unnamed! Put up for his sons a slaughterhouse, for the sin of their father; may they not arise to take the earth! Then the face of the land will be full of towns. And I will rise against them, announces the CAUSE of Multitudes, and will cut down from Babylon remembrance and remnant, kith and kin, announces the CAUSE. And I will make it a possession of the bandicoot-rat, of water-pools; and I will broom it with the broom of destruction, announces the CAUSE of Multitudes.

The CAUSE of Multitudes has vowed this: Thus it will be: If I thought it, thus it is, and if I planned it, thus it comes to pass. To break Assyria in My land, on My mountain to crush him. And his yoke will drop from them, and his burden from their shoulders will drop. That is the plan planned for all the earth, that is the outstretched arm over all the nations. For the CAUSE of Multitudes has planned, who can foil? The Outstretched Arm is God’s, so who can turn it away?

From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog.

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established."–Psalms 90:17

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